


19 Summers

by sherleigh



Category: EXO (Band), SHINee
Genre: M/M, apart from key none of them play a large enough role to be named, only platonic taekey here, please don't expect regular updates, shock horror, starring a smattering of shinee and exo members, this is fic is taekai only, yes sherleigh isn't writing taekey this time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2018-12-26 22:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherleigh/pseuds/sherleigh
Summary: Jongin and Taemin measure their love by the summers they spend together.





	1. 4

**4**

 

I was four when I first met you.

 

I don’t remember much from when I was four, but I do remember the first time I met you.

 

It was summer and I was playing in the soft sand at the back of the house. I can’t imagine that my parents left me alone so close to the beach where a four-year-old could easily drown, but I guess my memory is incomplete. Maybe they were there. Maybe it was a simpler time when parents weren’t so concerned about child-proofing the world.

 

But there I was, playing in the sand by myself, when I looked up and saw you. My first thought was that you were a fairy. I believed in my mother’s simple fairy tales then, of fairies and spirits and princes and princesses. You looked like you walked out of one of her stories.

 

She told me never to give my name to fairies. She said they use names to steal people away. That was why I didn’t tell you my name when you came to say hello to me. It didn’t bother you, though. You just invited yourself to my playground and started building sandcastles with me. I liked your voice, even if I didn't trust you at first. And then I liked your smile. I asked you whether you were going to live in the sandcastle. I cannot remember your answer but I remember thinking that I must build a really nice and sturdy one for you because you were a nice fairy and you weren't here to steal me away.

 

It was only when your parents came to take you home that I realised you were just a boy like me.

 


	2. 5

I suppose our first proper meeting happened the next year.

 

I was colouring something and generally doing a pretty good job of staying out of my mother’s way as she dealt with guests when you walked in with your parents.

 

You were hiding behind your mother’s legs. I wanted to get your attention so I came out and said hello, even before my mother could.

 

Your mother was very sweet. “Look, Taeminnie,” she said. “A friend.”

 

I introduced myself the way my kindergarten teacher had taught me to. “I’m Kim Jongin. I’m five years old. Pleased to meet you.”

 

The first thing you said was “I’m your hyung.”

 

I don’t quite know what set me off, but according to my mother I stomped my stubby little legs and insisted that I wouldn’t call you hyung because you were smaller than me. You replied that you wouldn’t speak to me if I didn’t.

 

We all know who won that battle, because I’ve never said the words ‘Taemin-hyung’, but for a few days I did wonder whether I should just give in anyway. You were the only person of my age staying at our pension and I wanted so badly to play with you.

 

But then you found a pretty shell and we both forgot about formality and manners.

 

If only our other arguments were so easily resolved.


	3. 6

You didn’t come by the next year.

 

I missed you the way a six-year old misses his friends – which is to say, not very much at all – but I did ask my mother when you would be arriving. I had assumed, innocently, that you would be here every summer.

 

She tried her best to explain to me that people don’t always come to the same place for a holiday every single year, but all I heard was that I might not see my fairy friend any more.

 

It made me cry.

 

You’ve made me cry more than I ever imagined I could, Lee Taemin.


	4. 7

My father died in the spring.

 

He was crossing a road when a drunk tourist ran him over in broad daylight. Other people in the street took him to the hospital, but it was too late.

 

We cremated him, my mother and sisters and I. And, as was the tradition in our little ocean town, we released his ashes into the sea. There is a small shrine in one of the far-flung rocky coves. We lit joss sticks, left offerings and prayed that the sea spirits would carry him to his new life.

 

When summer came and our pension became full again, I hated each and every tourist that walked through our doors.

 

Until you came along.

 

How could I hate you when your eyes lit up as soon as you saw me? How could I be angry when you ran across the lobby to hug me?

 

For the short time that you were there, I forgot how awful the world could be. We swam and climbed trees and picked shells. You lost a tooth playing on the swings. I scraped my palms trying to do handstands like you learnt to do in your school. For the short time that you were there, I was happy.

 

“Will you come back next year?” I asked on your last day.

 

You promised you would.


	5. 8

 

That was the year I learnt that people don’t really keep their promises.

 

Mother promised to attend the PTA. She didn’t. Some guests wanted to host a dinner party and she had to make sure the food was ready.

 

My oldest sister promised to help me with my science paper. She didn’t. She had to go to work for Mr Seo the grocer after school.

 

My second sister promised to play with me when she was done with her homework. She didn’t. She had friends to hang out with.

 

I understood why they couldn’t keep their promises, but it still hurt. I resolved then never to promise anything to anyone, because life was cruel and even with the best of intentions, promises just set the recipient up for heartbreak.

 

Summer came but you didn’t.


	6. 9

 

You changed a lot over a year, appearance-wise. It’s funny, isn’t it, how we see change in other people but not ourselves.

 

I had a lot of responsibilities since my father died. I had to help my mother buy things for the pension from the market. I spent my mornings hauling fish and peeling potatoes, all the while wondering whether there was something about Seoul that gave its residents such large appetites.

 

When you came, I noticed things about you that I hadn’t before; how your clothes looked more like that of your fellow Seoul residents and not like mine, and how your haircut was so chic, unlike mine.

 

If you noticed anything different about me, you certainly didn’t let it show.

 

That year, you were obsessed with dolphins. I didn’t really care for them, but you did, so I learnt to as well. We followed fishermen ahjussi out to sea so that you could catch a glimpse of them as they stole fish from nets. At night, we read your dolphin books by flashlight long after we were supposed to be asleep.

 

The day before you were supposed to leave, I took you out to the cliffs. We passed by the shrine where we leave offerings for my father. I knew you were Catholic – my own belief in sea spirits felt so rural in comparison – so I pretended not to know what it was when you asked. Out here, you could see the whole bay and, of course, any dolphins that might be wandering through.

 

We waited for a while, and then a whole pod of them showed up. It was nothing I hadn’t seen before, but your happiness made something so ordinary seem so magical. They played in the shallows for a long time, until the sun had almost set and it was time for us to leave.

 

That night, instead of reading, we sat on your balcony and watched the stars.

 

“Jongin-ah,” you asked “can you be best friends with someone you only see a few days a year?”

 

“I guess so,” I answered honestly.

 

“You’re my best friend.”

 

I wasn’t surprised to hear you say it, but it still felt good. “You’re my best friend too.”

 

“Can I tell you a secret?”

 

“Sure.” You looked so nervous, so I reached over and held your hand. “We’re best friends now, so you can tell me all your secrets.”

 

“Today, at the bay, the dolphins came because I called them.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I wished for them to come, and then they did.”

 

I would have laughed if not for how scared you looked. The bay was always full of dolphins in the summer; that’s why I took you up there in the first place. It would have been more unusual not to see any dolphins, wishes aside. But you believed you could summon dolphins, and who was I to take that away from you?

 

“If you wish to stay all year, would that come true too?”

 

“I don’t think it works that way, Jongin-ah.”

 

“I’ll miss you.”

 

“I’ll write to you,” you promised.

 

I stopped believing in promises, but I always believed you. That’s why it hurt all the more when you didn’t keep them.


	7. 10

 

You didn’t come. You never wrote either. I watched the dolphins in the bay by myself.


End file.
